In which old story lines, nemeses and allies return for a victory lap, and we find out beauteous Esther’s exact address in Toronto’s tony Forest Hill neighbourhood – which, does anyone know what Manhattan-adjacent community Forest Hill could pretend to be standing in for?
There’s a lot of rehashing of past prison-related stories in this episode, too much for me to remind readers what the characters are talking about (that’s what past recaps are for!). Just saying.
Sometime ally Cahill (of the doll-like blue eyes) shows up outside Harvey’s apartment at night. Cahill has been charged by Malik, Harvey’s nemesis, with having colluded/conspired with Harvey and a felon on the Sutter case. Harvey suggests he defend Cahill so they can have attorney-client privilege and get through this together without Harvey being disbarred.
Malik doesn’t want Harvey (his real target) to represent Cahill, but a judge says it’s okay. Faye doesn’t want Harvey to handle the case either but Harvey tells her to back off.
Malik gets threatened by Cahill’s boss, and by Donna (whose threat was scarier, do you think?), but perseveres and arrests Cahill for obstruction of justice and Harvey for conspiracy. In a snappily written and edited sequence, Malik browbeats Cahill and Harvey separately, asking them the same questions, and we alternate between their responses. Cahill cracks first, thinking Malik has them beat, and asks for Faye to represent him instead of Harvey.
Alex gets Harvey out on bail. Harvey punches Cahill in the jaw, and makes a speech/thematic statement about he only breaks rules and crosses lines to do good for good people. Way to rationalize, Harvey.
Donna berates Faye in the washroom and accuses her of hating Harvey, and after Harvey had a chance to turn Faye in, too, and he didn’t. Faye, like Cahill, thinks Harvey may be a good man. But since he won’t change, he’s a cancer to the firm. A cancer!
The gang find out that Sutter died in prison, and made a deathbed confession to an informant who tipped off Malik in exchange for a reduced sentence. The informant was Forstman, another of Harvey’s nemeses, played by he’s-still-got-hair-and-a-menacing-air Eric Roberts.
When Alex figures out that Sutter’s confession wasn’t a deathbed one after all because Sutter had a heart attack, Cahill has Malik arrested for fabricating evidence. Harvey visits Forstman in prison and tells him to expect a lengthened sentence now – hah! He goes home feeling good about himself, only to learn from Donna that his mother has died, also of a heart attack.
In other family-related arcs, Louis is handling the legal side of a merger between the company belonging to his beauteous sister Esther, and a company run by Paul Richmond, her former mentor. The deal is about done when Esther asks Louis to scupper it somehow. Esther doesn’t want to work with Richmond because he sexually assaulted her in a hotel room 15 years ago. She managed to escape after he tried to force himself on her, but he warned her she would never work again if she reported it.
Louis wants to throttle the guy, or at least bring his crimes to light, but Esther won’t go public with her story for fear of the repercussions she and her children would suffer.
When Katrina catches wind of what’s going on, she offers to help Louis. She once tried to prosecute a man guilty of similar crimes but lost the case, and hopes that they will be more successful in the current (MeToo) era. When Louis’s emotional outbursts and Katrina’s clever legal mind fail to produce results, Louis asks Samantha (still unemployed) to help take “this piece of shit” (Richmond) down.
Samantha finds that six women previously employed by Richmond’s company took large bonuses on termination and signed NDA’s. Samantha & Katrina pressure the staffers responsible for getting the NDA’s signed to hand them over. Richmond still won’t budge on the merger unless Esther comes forward with her accusation, which she does, having been convinced to do so by Katrina. They will sue him unless he resigns. He resigns, and Esther tells him to get the fuck out of here. Yes, Esther!
Helping Esther makes Louis realize how important family he is. He goes home to Sheila (still hugely pregnant) and re-proposes marriage to her, with a ring this time. He wants to get married before the baby is born. She says yes.
Next week: Mike and Samantha sue Faye for wrongful dismissal. Only two episodes left!
Kim Moritsugu is a Toronto novelist and sometime TV show recapper. Her latest novel The Showrunner, available from your favourite bookseller, is a darkly humourous, suspenseful Hollywood-noir about female ambition inside the TV biz that has been called a “sophisticated, compelling, and surprisingly complex drama,” and has been optioned for development as a TV series.
Check out its book trailer here:
The Hungry Novelist 